Picture the scenario, the beloved head of state dies and the ageing son succeeds them. Whilst the country suffers an overwhelming increase in the cost of living, almost doubling of interest rates for mortgages and stubborn double digit inflation driving millions into poverty and hardship, a lavish ceremony is planned, the cost of which is borne by the people. Many of the People are furious that the money is not being spent on solving their problems. 

The country is reeling after facing years of austerity policies brought on by the ruling elite to pay the costs of bailing out the banks that had created a financial crisis. This crisis was brought on by the banks themselves through their greed and recklessness. Despite many other countries taking a completely different approach the ruling elite tell the people there is no alternative, the books have to be balanced. Every public service is run down and every tiny advantage is removed. The people bear this cost, because they have no choice.

People finally have had enough and a series of national strikes start across workers of all industries, they are asking for the same thing, pay rises just to be in line with the increase in prices. People are now living month to month in deficit even though they are full time employees. 

As inflation increases and pay does not, the value of earnings is reducing. And as interest rates increase more of people’s earnings go to banks to pay their mortgages and less money is available for food and clothes for their children. They are told there is no money but what about the ceremony? What about all the billions wasted during the pandemic on a test and trace system that never got used or the contracts to cronies that never delivered? What about the billions given to shareholders of public utilities like water, electricity, gas and rail, if the people still owned them then these profits could help them and prices could be controlled.

The government ignores them and spends the money on a huge ceremony which precipitates  a few small demonstrations at the new head of state’s succession and the waste of money. People are calling for a change, people are asking for a fair deal and for relief from the day to day difficulties of their lives. By working together a record breaking number of food banks open up allowing the people working full time to at least feed themselves and their children.

In response to the protests for the lavish ceremony the government now passes a series of authoritarian public order laws giving the police ambiguous new powers to stop protestors. On the day of the ceremony they use these powers to arrest protestors before they have even protested. They are taken away without charge and detained before they have even committed a crime. People shake their heads, but the issues facing them are so huge they don’t know where to start. Which pain do they face first, feeding their children and keeping their homes or the erosion of their civil liberties?                              

It emerges that during the global pandemic, which saw people confined under new laws to their homes, that the leader of the government and the most senior members were having raucous parties at the leaders residence in the capital. Normal people were unable to visit family or older relatives, regardless of whether they were sick, many didnt even attend funerals of their loved ones. Stories and pictures emerge of these parties followed by denials and a refusal to accept that they had broken their own laws. 

Even after the beleaguered police charge these rulers for breaking their own laws, nothing changes. Public enquiries are smudged and delayed so that the full truth is not revealed. In fact one of the attendees at these parties, the Chancellor, who is charged for breaking the law ascends to become the head of government. The public are outraged that they have had to suffer such hardship whilst the elite lived like they were exempt from the laws they themselves made. It’s like George Orwell’s Animal Farm, life imitating art in the most deplorable way, almost unbelievable, unless you are living in it. 

The leaders of the government are constantly being found out for feathering their own nests, passing laws for their own personal benefit. One of the leaders has successively passed laws that benefit his ultra rich wife and many of his friends. More information emerges that Billions of public funds were fast tracked to cronies of the ruling elite for services that did not deliver during the pandemic, nothing is done, we just know that this public money was wasted. No attempt is made to recover the billions of public money wasted. There is no longer any effective censure. 

Occasionally the odd minister is thrown to the lions only to reappear later in another role. Society is starting to get sick of these rulers and when they try to push back they are silenced and gaslighted as woke problem makers. One of the senior members of the ruling elite tells people that aren’t happy to “leave the country and go and live somewhere else.” 

Over 7 million people wait for operations, the number is believed to be higher, as so many more have not come forward because they don’t believe they can receive help. Accident and emergency departments are overrun, a once proud Free Health Care system is on its knees, the precursor of it being handed over to private companies to suck more public funds out of the system. Private water companies pay themselves huge shareholder dividends whilst pumping record breaking levels of sewage into the rivers of this beautiful country. How can this be possible? The nation’s own water system is poisoning the country, whilst their owners get rich.

A number of coups from the ruling elite lead to a constant change in leadership. Democracy has stalled and these new leaders are not even elected by the people, less than 0.1% of people are involved, all of which are in the political party of the ruling elite. After burning through 3 leaders a disastrous 4th lasts less than 2 months, during which time they proclaim that tax cuts for the richest are the solution to our collective problem. If the rich are able to be richer the wealth will trickle down we are told. This in turn leads to immediate economic decline making an impossible situation even worse. 

The 5th leader is chosen by an even smaller elite of just over 300 people, pushing democracy further into the shadows. Each leader brings in more draconian legislation, deporting refugees, silencing critics, preventing strikes. They drive their message through the press which is owned by their cronies, many of which fund the rulers from overseas. People want to be heard. Even marches rallying against the cost of living crisis, with over 1 million people in attendance are not reported, the press focus only on the topics that the ruling elite want to show.

Why would a government act in such a way? Standing by as huge corporations profiteer from citizens who can’t pay and are being driven into poverty. With inflation higher than pretty much anywhere in the world it’s impossible for the workers to keep pace with prices. Good people including nurses, doctors, teachers, rail workers are being pilloried as the reasons for inflation, and not the huge profits that corporations are making. They are told it is wage inflation that is the problem, yet corporations are making record profits. People’s wages are declining because they are not keeping up with inflation. How can this be the reason?

The new ruler rather than address these issues, goes to America in an attempt to showcase their country as a location for free enterprise. He calls it the Unicorn Kingdom, in a poor attempt to align the country to the idea that they can create unicorns ($1 billion valuation companies). It seems ridiculous that no one points out how awful this might sound. These companies don’t even produce $1 billion of output, often only a tiny fraction, a perfect analogy for the vacuous nature of the ruling elite. 

Feeling awkward ? Me too, we should send some troops to help reestablish democracy right now? These poor people are being arrested for protesting, people are working full time but cannot afford their homes, energy bills and increasingly not even food for their families. 

How awful must it be to live in a country like this. You should know you live in it.

Members of our government are currently taking part in a National Conservatism conference, does that party name sound familiar? Right wing extremist rhetoric dressed up as nobility and a respect for common people. Drop in some intellectual ideas and try and legitimise your position? We have sadly seen all of this before.

Suella Braverson, Is your dream of sending refugees to Rwanda not enough, you have turned on trans people and Pakistanis too? Who is next? You proudly talk of your immigrant upbringing, a concept that could no longer happen under the rules you are bringing in. Your own parents would not be able to come into the country if they came now. You are complaining about immigration yet you have been Home Secretary for 9 months, there literally is no one else to blame. I thought Priti Patel was bad, but wow, just wow.

At the same conference Rees Mogg is telling everyone that their own gerrymandering didn’t work when they brought in the Voter ID requirement for the local elections. I had to watch it a few times, I could not believe it. It’s there on film, it backfired, he said. He meant it as a slur against the Labour party for considering long term UK residents and taxpayers are eligible to vote, but his smugness got the better of him. You’ve said it now. A ruling elite so caught up in its sense of importance, but being struck down by the most common reason they all fall, their own hubris. It’s so sweet, you are such an arse Jakey boy.

What is it going to take for us to make the change? When I speak to people who support this government they are in such a state of denial that they continue to harp back to the last Labour government, as if the current situation doesn’t exist. Economic instability is being caused by this government and their policies. Why is it that income tax rates are higher than capital gains tax rates? Because the rich can influence policy, and the rich are the ruling elite. Huge profits have to come from price increases and wage decline, no one is selling more or creating new markets. We aren’t talking about small increases in profits, we are seeing doubling of profits, billions and billions of pounds more.

We are left with hateful speeches, exclusionary laws, a steady procession of public money being sent into the private sector so that the rich get richer. And what do we get from the prime minister? Unicorn Kingdom, it’s so ironic it hurts. 

You couldn’t make it up, well I don’t need to.

p.s. I didn’t need to even mention Brexit – oops there it is